The Michigan High School Football Coaches Association’s nearly half-decade crusade to get regional playoff seeding is finally over.
During its annual spring meeting May 3-4 in Gaylord, the Michigan High School Athletic Association’s Representative Council, a 19-member legislative body representing 1,500 schools, voted to change how the 11-player football postseason will be seeded starting in 2026.
Going forward, all eight divisions will be split into eight separate regions and seeded by average playoff points. Each region will then be divided into two districts. District 1 will feature the No. 1, 4, 5 and 8 seeds, while District 2 will include the No. 2, 3, 6 and 7 seeds. The district winners will meet in the Round 3 regional final.
Previously, the MHSAA only seeded districts.
This offseason, the MHSFCA submitted a 21-page document to the Representative Council outlining why seeding beyond districts was necessary.
Hometown Life obtained that document, which highlighted parity across regions, breaking up geographic clusters and improving the postseason experience for teams, while adding little travel for most schools and still keeping eight state champions.
“I’ve been in favor of this for a while, and we’ve been kicking around this change in our meetings with the Coaches Association for at least three years or more,” said Livonia Franklin coach Chris Kelbert, also an MHSFCA regional director. “We’ve been wanting to get the best four teams into the semifinals and ensure we get the two best teams at Ford Field. This change is a way to make sure one of the best teams isn’t knocked out of the playoffs early because of location. Our districts aren’t going to change much going forward, but by seeding eight teams in the regional, we’re going to get much better matchups.”
That has long been the biggest gripe among coaches: State championship-caliber games too often happen in Round 2 because of geography. Davison coach Jake Weingartz was quoted in the document saying, “We had three teams ranked top 10 in Division 1 in our district. That should not happen.”
The MHSFCA also polled 207 coaches and athletic directors about the proposal, with 92.3% supporting regional seeding over district seeding. It’s clear coaches are tired of facing top-ranked opponents early in the playoffs, especially after strong regular seasons they hoped would be rewarded.
“Regional seeding is the only way to create a level playing field and reward teams that earn it during the regular season,” Madison Heights Lamphere coach Ray Ostrowski was quoted as saying in the document, while former South Lyon East coach Jacob Topp argued that, “This reduces repeat matchups from Week 9 and rewards stronger regular seasons.”
That’s a nod to the Cougars facing rival South Lyon in back-to-back weeks in 2022 and 2025. The two meet annually in Week 9, commonly referred to statewide as rivalry week, only to turn around and face each other again in Round 1 of the playoffs.
The same thing has happened four times since 2018 for rivals Birmingham Groves and Seaholm.
Expanding the seeding likely means those rematches won’t happen nearly as often. It also means teams like Northville might no longer be stuck opening the playoffs against the same schools every year, including rivals Novi and Detroit Catholic Central and state power Belleville.
“Sometimes you get back-to-back rematches, like with Zeeland West and East and South Lyon and East in the district, and now we don’t have to do that anymore,” Northville coach Brent Luplow said. “So, there’s definitely some positives to this, especially in Division 1, where it’ll be nice to get more competitive games later in the playoffs. Like last year, we went 7-2 and had three 7-2 teams in our district, and we still had to go on the road.”
Of course, some coaches are skeptical about the changes.
Some believe seeding by region will increase travel, especially for teams in more rural areas. But according to an independent study conducted by the MHSFCA, teams will travel only an average of 10 extra miles for a Round 1 playoff game. Considering some schools already travel 600-900 miles during the regular season, the MHSFCA believes the added distance is minimal compared to the benefits of regional seeding.
Still, there’s concern about the long-term effects of the changes and what the sport could look like five or 10 years from now.
To earn a No. 1 seed in a region, teams likely will need to play tougher schedules. That could lead to more conference realignment as similarly sized schools group together to maximize playoff points, potentially costing the sport some of what has long made high school football special.
“Seeding will continue to push conference alignment based off enrollment instead of tradition and geography,” Garden City coach Thomas Michalsen said. “School-of-choice enrollment trends are difficult to predict, so we can expect more changes in conferences and longer bus rides for student-athletes.”
We’ve already seen it happen throughout the past decade. Old rivalries have faded because of enrollment shifts, forcing bigger schools to schedule other large schools instead of longtime rivals right down the road that can no longer keep pace.
And for what? Many teams that beef up their schedules just to secure a playoff berth end up getting pummeled in Round 1 anyway. Wouldn’t schools be better served playing a fun, exciting regular-season schedule instead of sneaking into the playoffs only to suffer a lopsided early exit?
“We will probably get blowouts with this change, but it will give better teams an opportunity to win a couple of games instead of being paired with other great teams in the first two rounds,” Kelbert argued. “You might see some pretty good beatings in the first round. But you never know. That seventh seed may come from a tough league, and that two seed might come from a poor league. You might see lower seeds win sometimes. It’s all going to depend on the matchups.”
And that’s true. If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best, and a No. 8 seed should have the toughest path to Ford Field.
So only time will tell whether these changes suck more of the soul out of what has made Friday Night Lights special for the past 75 years, namely the tradition, pageantry and proximity of playing nearby rivals, or whether matchups like Detroit King and River Rouge meeting later in the playoffs instead of in a district or regional final truly benefits the sport.
Brandon Folsom covers high school sports in metro Detroit for Hometown Life. Follow him on his new X.com account at @folsomwrites.
This article originally appeared on Hometownlife.com: How changing playoff seeding impacts MHSAA high school football